4247. Robert Southey to John Rickman, 12 September 1824
Endorsement: 12 Septr – – 24
MS: Huntington Library, RS 452. ALS; 4p.
Previously published: John Wood Warter (ed.), Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey, 4 vols (London, 1856), III, pp. 439–440 [in part].
Thank you for your letter, – & for the Chidham statistics,
which by the method & the multum in parvo
I should have known to be yours. The letter travels back for Bertha’s profit. The fault which you notice consists I believe a good deal manner, & arises not from any deficiency in the sense of kindness, as from timidity & a sense of awkwardness in expressing it. I think so from what I know of her nature, as well as because she expresses in her letters a very warm sense of the kindness she is experiencing.
So you have a built a house,
the thing of all things which I have for many years desired to do, – but then mine x must have been in a situation to my hearts content, with a clear stream running thro the grounds, near enough, & secure enough in its privacy for the women to bathe there. – May you live to enjoy your new domicile as long as life is desirable: – & may you have many Sessions as little pugnacious & therefore as little prolonged as the last.
I am well pleased that Bertha has had so good an opportunity of seeing the details of agricultural life; – here she had no means of observing them. She has grown up with a love of the country, & it is well of if a love of rural occupations & a country life should be added to it. Her mother has trained her in habits of wise frugality, & she has good domestic qualities, which let her lot be what it may, cannot but be useful. We miss her & her sister, as you may suppose. And yet I think Berthas absence has been had good effect upon Kate, who has certainly made great progress in her lessons since she has not had Bertha to rely on.
You have heard that I am engaged in an incredible number of works. The booksellers are to blame for sometimes announcing as an intention what has been mentioned as a project for consideration, – but the truth is twofold, to wit 1st that I have (& am aware of having) a propensity for planning works “of great pith & moment”
which leads me to dream of more than can ever by possibility be fulfilled, – & 2dly that in pursuing any one of my determined engagements, I am continually meeting with something applicable to other schemes, not yet in course of execution, & in this way while rearing one edifice, I collect materials for others. It is not with me as it would be if I had nothing to consider but how to employ my time either most worthily or most agreably to my own desires. While I have some thing before me to be pursued for its own sake, I must of necessity have something in hand for the Ways & Means of the year, – something on the present sale of which I can rely. If I have many irons in the fire, one reason therefore is because <that> there is a large pot to boil. Now I have rea grounds for believing that the part of my time which must be devoted to this essential object could in no way be so profitably employed as in sketching our civil history, with a view of showing the growth & progress of our institutions, & treating those portions fairly & fearlessly, upon <concerning> which the greatest prejudices prevail.
Three 8vos would suffice for this, down to the death of Anne;
& then I should think of following it up with the Age of George 3
– introduced by a brief view of the two intermediate reigns.
The objection is what you point out, the wide course of reading wherein I should be tempted to discurse. Of that however I should not have much apprehension, if I were provided with the books
At present I am x getting on well with my second volume,
& with certain minora,
– the Dialogues being one.
Mrs R.s note arrived to day, & Mrs S. is much obliged by her kind solicitude. Bertha will have received two communications before this packet arrives. In case of any future suspension, let her be angry rather than fearful, in the certainty that ill news always travels fast.
God bless you
RS.
